"There is only one power that determines the course of history . . . the power of ideas." — Ayn Rand

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Forbes: "Death Panels ... We already have one"

Last month, I cited the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's downgrading of PSA testing for prostate cancer as evidence that Sarah Palin's ObamaCare "Death Panels" charge was coming true. In that post, I quoted from a NJ Star-Ledger letter-to-the-editor correspondent who came to the same conclusion.

[T]he U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a committee of “experts” appointed by the Department of Health & Human Services ... recently de-clared that men should not be routinely screened for prostate cancer. The most common test is the PSA, which is part of a blood test. The panel also said no to rectal exams and ultrasounds, claiming that testing does no good, that it doesn’t save lives.

The emphasis is mine. So, it's worse than I thought. Just as in my previous post on the subject I cited numerous examples of the success of regular screening, so Forbes points to his own:

After skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer found in men. Last year it killed 32,000 people in the U.S. The panel’s tortured reasoning is that oftentimes traces of cancer in the prostate don’t lead to a full-blown attack that can kill the patient. True enough, as far as that goes. But the panel ignored the inconvenient fact that physicians have a measurement called the Gleason score to determine how dangerous the disease is. If that score is low doctors will take a watchful attitude; if it gets high they’ll recommend action.

I know. A routine rectal exam last spring resulted in an alarming finding, subsequently confirmed by an ultrasound and a biopsy. The Gleason score was flashing red, so my prostate was removed, and—knock on wood—it seems the disease was caught early and successfully.

The task force makes a big deal about the unpleasant side effects in treating prostate cancer. But with a disease like cancer I’ll take the side effects of treatment over letting nature take its course.

In other words, the government - if and when these recommendations are adopted - will come between the doctor's judgement and his patient's fundamental right to make his own decisions about his health. Where would Mr. Forbes be if doctors were probibited from doing rectal exams and ultrasounds, let alone PSA tests?

When Palin made her famous Death Panel charge, ObamaCare defenders were quick to point out that nowhere in the bill are anything resembling Death Panels explicitly called for. Some opponents of ObamaCare concurred. In his Summer 2011 Objective Standard review of Why ObamaCare is Wrong for America, Jared M. Rhoads writes:

[I]n the section titled bluntly "Are There Death Panels In ObamaCare?" (to which they answer "no"), the authors explain how the contraversy arose and what protections are in place to prevent the emergence of death panels - and then acknowledge the legitimate basis for concern over this issue, which is the conflict of interest introduced when the federal government makes decisions about coverage while simultaneously trying to control costs (p. 92).

The emphasis in the above quote is mine. This is why, in my 10/19/11 post, I said that "these government studies can not be trusted" because:

The Federal government now controls almost 90% of healthcare spending, both directly through programs like Medicare and Medicaid and indirectly through its crony arm, the quasi-private health insurance industry. Consequently, the government now has a vested interest in controlling costs. The deep, inherent conflict of interest is apparent, and should scare all of us.

It is a mistake to take Sarah Palin literally. But that doesn't mean she was wrong. The truth is much more subtle and sinister than that. In John David Lewis's Winter 2009-2010 Objective Standard article, What the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” HR 3962, Actually Says, Lewis writes:

This bill is 1,990 pages of mind-numbing legalese. It will reach deeply into federal and state regulations and laws, on a scale that will require years for experts to interpret. It will establish institutions that will be effectively irreversible. It will grant arbitrary powers to bureaucrats, who will have to interpret and enforce its dictates. A full analysis of its impact would require a commentary at least as long as the bill itself. American citizens cannot be expected to read and understand such legislation. But they should be aware that this is the nature of the laws being written by their (alleged) representatives in Washington.

This legislation empowers the executive branch, namely the Secretary of Health and Human Services and a “Health Choices Commissioner,” to write thousands of pages of regulations, and to force Americans to comply with them. For every line in this bill, many pages of regulations will be written. As a result, the bureaucracy will expand, the final cost will be many times more than the original estimates—and the impact on American medicine will be devastating.

Death Panels will arrive through the "arbitrary powers [of] bureaucrats" writing "thousands of pages of regulations" implementing policies often based upon the recommendations of reports such as the PSA study issued by the benign-sounding U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. The devastating results may not occur immediately. As Forbes writes:

Two years ago this task force said wom-en under the age of 50 shouldn’t get annual mammograms—a “finding” so preposterous even the Department of Health & Human Services ran away from it.

This latest dictate is meeting the same fate.

Though they may not yet be able to get away with this particular attack on prostate cancer screening, it is an indication of the kinds of hidden forces being unleashed against American healthcare. The dictatorial power over our health care being accumulated by our government will lead inexorably to Death Panel results sooner or later, if not repealed. It is our children and grandchildren who will ultimately pay the full price.

Echoing others, Forbes concludes:

If the government succeeds in dominating health care, as it’s now on its way to doing, we can expect more of these weird and lethal findings. The focus will be on rationing and saving money. What we need in health care is more free enterprise, not Soviet-style controls.

About Me

Greetings and welcome to my blog. My name is Michael A. (Mike) LaFerrara. I sometimes use the pen or "screen" name "Mike Zemack" or "Zemack" in online activism, such as posted comments on articles. “Zemack” stands for the first letters of the names of my six grandchildren. I was born in 1949 in New Jersey, U.S.A., where I retired from a career in the plumbing, building controls, and construction industries, and still reside with my wife of 45 years. The purpose of my blog is the discussion of a wide range of topics relating to human events. My analysis is informed by the principles of Objectivism, the philosophy of reason and independence originated by Ayn Rand.

As Rand observed: “The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher.” I am certainly not the philosopher. But neither am I a field agent, or general. I am a foot soldier in that Objectivist army that fights for an individualist society in which every person can live in dignified sovereignty, by his own reasoned judgment, for his own sake, in that state of peaceful coexistence with his fellow man that only capitalist political and economic freedom can provide. While I am a fully committed Objectivist, my opinions are based on my own understanding of Objectivism, and should not be taken as definitive “Objectivist positions.” For the full story of my journey toward Objectivism, see my Introduction.

One final introductory note: I strongly recommend Philosophy, Who Needs it, which highlights the inescapable importance of philosophy in every individual's life. I can be reached at mal.atlas@comcast.net. Thanks, Mike LaFerrara.

Recommended Essays/Videos

Quotes I Like

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.—Francisco d'Anconia

I love getting older...I get to grow up and learn things. Madalyn, 5 years old, Montesorri student, and my grand-daughter

The best thing one can do for the poor is to not become one of them. Author Unknown

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Francis Bacon

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Ronald Reagan

Thinking is hard work. If it weren't, more people would do it. Henry Ford

Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. Ayn Rand